by Dale Mayer
When he saw her, he winced. “That bad?”
She could barely speak. She knew that he would see the tears in her eyes, but she nodded and whispered, “Yes, that bad.”
He bent down, gently lifted her, and then stepped out to let the next woman have her spot.
Outside, she realized that the men had formed a large line around the injured women, and they were being processed as fast as they could: names, addresses, contact information. Medical doctors were giving each a full rundown. Bathrooms, water, and, in some cases, coffee was distributed, when one of the guys came out with multiple trays in his hands.
Danica called out, “Hey, may I have one of those?”
He walked over and held up a tray, and she picked up a cup.
He asked, “Do you need anything in it?”
She shook her head. “Black is fine with me.”
“If you’re sure,” he said. “It’s pretty strong stuff.”
With her coffee hugged against her chest, Beau carried her back to the medical van where there was just enough room to put her down beside two other women. One of them had a bad gash on her leg. He looked at her, smiled, and said, “You made it this far, did you?”
The woman looked up at him and burst into tears.
Immediately Danica put down her coffee and wrapped the woman in her arms.
“We’re so sorry for leaving you,” the woman said.
Danica shook her head. “It made sense for you to go, so don’t be upset. I’m just glad you made it here.”
“We parked around the back,” she said. “We were too scared to do anything, but then the military guys found us.”
“Well, good thing,” Danica said. “And now you can get that leg taken care of.”
The woman looked at the coffee, smiled, and said, “And, of course, you’d end up with coffee too, right?”
Danica snickered. “After what I’ve been through,” she said, “I deserve a three-course meal with steak and lobster, but that ain’t happening, at least for a while.”
“I’d be happy to have some peanuts,” the woman said. “It seems like forever since I had real food.”
“Well, let’s see if we can get you a coffee.” Danica started to hop down and then stopped. “Except for the fact that I can’t walk.” She looked up and batted her eyelashes at Beau. “This lady needs a coffee,” she said. Beau just rolled his eyes at her. “Please,” she said in a wheedling tone.
He turned, looked at the woman, smiled, and asked, “What do you like in it?”
The woman looked at him hopefully. “Cream and sugar, especially in the condition I’m in right now,” she said. “That would be lovely.”
“No problem,” he said, and he disappeared to track down whoever was bringing the coffee. As he began his search, however, he found a couple big carafes of coffee now sitting outside. While Danica watched, he poured a cup, added cream and sugar, and came back to give it to the woman.
The woman had tears in her eyes as she looked at it. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Some things in life you completely lose track of but are so appreciative to get.”
“I hear you,” he said. “It does help you to realign your values with what you used to appreciate.”
“Well, I certainly won’t walk alone in an alleyway anymore,” she said with a bare attempt at a smile. “And neither will I probably ever walk alone again.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “There is nothing quite like the loss of innocence in an everyday world.”
She nodded. “I have a daughter too. She’s only three, and my mother was looking after her,” she said. “The authorities are trying to reach my mother now.”
“Wonderful,” Danica said. “Your mother and your daughter will help you to heal.”
Danica sat here in the truck, watching as Beau moved from group to group. Finally he and Asher stood together off to the side, having a heavy discussion. She wasn’t exactly sure what was going on now, but she knew they had come looking for her at her father’s request. Did that mean, now that they’d found her, their job was done and they were leaving? She wanted to hop down and race toward them and make sure that Beau didn’t leave without giving her his contact information, but she couldn’t even move. She stared at her feet, then looked back at the men.
The other woman beside her said, “I don’t think he’ll leave without talking to you.”
She looked at her. “Am I that obvious?”
The woman smiled. “I’m Charlotte,” she said, “and thanks so much for your help.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, “but it’s Beau and Asher over there who you need to thank. Asher’s the one who came back specifically to open up all those cells and, with Beau’s help, rescued you guys, and it was Asher’s truck you stole.”
The woman winced. “I’m not really happy with that decision of ours,” she said, “but we were so panicked …”
“I get it,” Danica said. “I’m pretty damn grateful myself to be here.”
“It’s a shit world out there,” Charlotte said. “And you can’t even walk out of your house without getting into something like this.”
“Is that what you were doing?” Danica asked.
“Well, I’d just gotten home,” Charlotte said. “I’d been at the university. I live close to campus, and I was heading over there when I realized I’d forgotten something. I turned around and came back, but I didn’t even get into the lobby of my building before I was taken.”
“I figure they’re probably feeding from universities and high schools,” Danica said. “One of the females in the truck that we just brought back didn’t look like she was even seventeen years old.”
Charlotte winced. “It’s a pretty rough way to start adulthood.”
“And so many of us might have come close to ending adulthood in this way.”
“The sex trade?” Charlotte asked, her voice faint. She took a deep, shaky breath and a sip of coffee. “It just boggles the mind.”
“I just don’t know why so many of us were taken,” Danica said. “I mean, if women are disappearing all over the country at the same time, you’d think that someone would have noticed it.”
“Well, if they took one or two from everywhere that they had access, then it wouldn’t be a problem,” Charlotte said. “Think about it. There’s very little communication from state to state as it is.”
“And I think the rush right now,” Danica said, “is that a ship is likely leaving. All of us would be put onto a ship and taken across the ocean.”
“And that is horrifying too,” she said. “The conditions that we were living in here …”
“And the twenty-plus women in those two most recent trucks,” Danica said, “most of them are in a very rough state too.”
“Exactly. By the time they get us all cataloged and checked out and over, and we contact our families,” Charlotte said, “it’ll be hard for the media to be quiet on this.”
“Which is why I don’t think we’re allowed to contact anybody just yet,” Danica said in a low voice. “Think about it. We don’t know how many other people could still be prisoners in the compound. The kidnappers brought in twenty or so this morning. How many can they ship overseas at a time? Forty, fifty, sixty? What if more trucks are coming in?”
Charlotte stared at her in horror. “I just had a vision of one of those great big oil tankers, only, instead of oil, it’s filled to the brim with women.”
“They’d hold a lot of people, I’m sure,” Danica said. “Think about the old slave traders and how many they would bring across in ships. We’re much more high-tech now. Put a doctor, some men, and some weapons aboard to keep us all in line and to chain us up, and we aren’t going anywhere,” she said. “They’d take us to the other side of the world, and they’d sell us off in parcels by the dozen.”
“Okay, now you’re making me sick to my stomach,” Charlotte said.
As Danica checked out Charlotte’s face, she saw that Charlotte was seriously ill
. Danica quickly grabbed the coffee from her hand as Charlotte fell to the ground and threw up again and again. With a medic at her side, Danica whispered, “I think she just realized what she escaped from.”
The doctor looked at her in understanding. “You’re not feeling the same?”
“No,” she said, “I’ve had a few more hours to deal with my possible future than she has had.”
The doctor moved Charlotte off to another ambulance so that she could lie down and gave her some water. Danica had held out the coffee to him, but he’d shook his head. “No coffee for her right now, but I’ve got something for the shock.”
When Danica sat back, she found Beau leaning against the medic truck. “What did you say to her to make her so sick?”
She turned to him and gave him a good frown. “What makes you think I had anything to do with that?”
“Instinct,” he said in a dry tone.
Irrepressible anger flashed. “I was discussing the fact that we were probably going in a tanker across the ocean to Asia, and the kidnappers had either already sold us off or would move us out in blocks of a dozen into the sex trade.”
He studied her for a long moment. “It’s possible, yes.”
“My concern is,” she said, “why the rush in numbers? There must be a ship leaving soon. Did we get all the trucks, or are more trucks coming?”
“That’s what Asher and I were just discussing. We also don’t know how many others could still potentially be held captive at the compound.”
“Right?” She nodded, then asked, “So are you going back there?”
He flashed her a grin. “What do you think?”
“I think before you disappear that you need to leave me a contact number,” she said. His eyebrows shot up, and she shook her head. “Oh, no, you don’t get to look surprised.”
He smiled and whispered, “I wasn’t surprised. I just figured that you already knew it.”
“And how would I know it?” she asked in exasperation.
“Figured you got it from Asher.”
“Well, I didn’t, and I’m not about to beat around the bush. I want it from you.”
He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, quickly wrote down a number, and handed it to her. She looked at it, committed it to memory, and handed it back. “Now you can destroy it, since you’re into all that sneaky spy stuff.”
“You memorized it?”
She nodded. “I always do. So, cell phone? Secure line? Your mom?”
At that, he burst out laughing, a sound so unusual, given the circumstances, that several people turned to look at him. “My cell number,” he said, “but you can’t use it anytime soon because, … if it rings when I’m in danger …”
“So, it’s the one you’ve got on you right now?”
He nodded. “But you don’t have a cell phone, so it won’t help you.”
“Exactly,” she said. “And, of course, you don’t belong here. You don’t have a boss here. Nobody knows who you are, where you belong, or where you will go when this is over, do they?”
He studied her seriously for a long moment. “Well, you can now.”
“Is that really the right number?”
“Yes,” he said, “it is. But I’ll do my best to see you when we’re done at the compound.”
“You’d better,” she said, “because you know, of all the people that the compound may blame for this, it’ll be me.”
He stopped in the act of turning away. “What are you talking about?”
“Think about Nania. She’s not here,” she said pointedly. “That means she’s still at the compound. And she’ll tell them about me because I’m the only one she can talk about.”
He winced, nodded, and said, “Then you stay surrounded by the men. You’ll be safe here.”
“Maybe,” she said, “and maybe not.”
He shot her a hard look and said, “Stay safe. That’s all there is to it.”
And he turned and walked away.
Beau met up with Asher, who had snagged a second cup of coffee from somewhere and was eating a sandwich. Beau looked at the sandwich and asked, “Where’d you get that?” Asher pointed. Beau turned around to see large trays of sandwiches being passed around. As the tray went by, he grabbed two for himself and made sure that the trays made their way to the many military trailers, where Danica sat. She looked at the sandwiches in delight and picked up two.
Beau wondered at that, and then she held one out for him, beckoning him closer.
At his side, Asher said, “You two go to bat for each other, don’t you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, you grabbed two sandwiches to make sure there was one for her, and she also grabbed two to make sure there was one for you.”
He shot his friend a look. “And how do you know I’m just not hungry?”
Asher laughed. “Go and give it to her. At least then you’ll be on the same wavelength.”
He shot her a look, took a few steps over, and said, “I picked up one for you.”
“And I picked up one for you.” They looked at the kind they each had, and she nodded. “I’ll take that one instead.” They quickly switched sandwiches, and she said, “Go on back to Asher. I know you’re having one of those guy talks.”
That was so close to the truth that he stopped and stared. She just winked at him and went back to munching her sandwich.
He left her to rejoin Asher, shaking his head at Asher. “I don’t get it. She’s so very different from anyone I’ve ever met before.”
“And I think that’s why it’s a really good connection for the two of you,” Asher said. “If you think about it, circumstances like this? You know that we really see who people are on the inside. Take that group of women who took off in our truck. They were concerned about themselves and only themselves.”
“And, if it wasn’t for our training,” Beau said, “maybe we would only think about ourselves.”
“Maybe, but Danica didn’t go, did she?”
“No,” Beau said slowly. “And she has no training.”
“No, but she’s hell on wheels. How many men did she kill? Two?”
“I think three,” Beau said. “I meant to ask her if she’s had any weapons training, but I realize the answer is no. She hasn’t. I can tell just from the way she handles the weapons.”
“Right, but she didn’t think anything about picking up a gun and killing somebody when they needed it.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. She’s somebody who, when the going gets tough …”
Asher jumped in then, adding, “… the tough get going.”
“In other words, she’s like us,” Beau said. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Only you can answer that,” Asher said. “But I, for one, would be jumping at the opportunity to keep her in my life.”
“Are you interested?”
Startled, Asher looked at Beau and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if I am or not,” he said, “she’s for you. That’s obvious to anybody.”
“She’s worried that there’s a ship about to set sail and that’s the reason for the push to get more women.” Beau quickly explained a little bit of her theory that she had shared with him.
Asher sat back, rocking on his heels, and nodded. “You know what? She’s got a brain in there. There’s got to be a reason why so many women were kidnapped so suddenly.”
“As if there’s a deadline, and that deadline is a way to transport the women out of here. Obviously they won’t just keep them here at the compound, and ships leave the Anchorage port all the time.”
“We should check which ones are there,” Asher said. “See if there’s anything that would do the job.”
“But, so far, we’ve only got what, thirty women minimum here—counting Danica?”
“Right. Is that enough of a load?”
“That’s another question too. Danica seems to think that
more trucks might be on the way.”
“Well, the gas station is set slightly back from the road, so if the trucks come in …” And then Asher stopped, looked at Beau, and said, “No. If the trucks are coming, they’ll see all the military vehicles and personnel here anyway.”
“Exactly, but there is only one way in or out of the compound,” Beau said. “And maybe the cult has warned the other drivers. They could be going straight to the ship.”
“We’ll have to send somebody out to look at that.”
Beau immediately contacted Jax. Beau explained the theory, saying, “We’re concerned that, if any other vehicles are coming, they could be heading straight to the docks or gathering somewhere else. What I can tell you is these are white panel trucks. Hang on. I’ll send you some pictures.” He walked to the truck that Asher had driven, and Beau had ridden in the back of, and took several photos and sent them to Jax. “There were two of these,” he said. “I don’t know where these originated from, but, if you can find any more in Anchorage, we need to check them out. And, if any of them are heading toward the docks, parked at the docks, or anywhere close to the docks, we need to take a special interest in those. Maybe the cult is collecting all the women to leave the port all at once.”
“Which would make sense,” Jax said. “We’re on satellite watching you now,” he said. “There was a vehicle a few miles from where you are that turned around.”
“Shit,” Beau said. “Can you find out where the vehicle went?”
“We’re on it now,” he said. “There’s also a lot of movement at the compound. We’re trying to get through to the head of the military group that you’ve got there with you to make sure their men are in place before the cult members take off.”
“What do you mean, take off?”